Ice Cream Sandwich

Updated: 1 year ago

In Short

Looking to forget about the relative mis-step that was Honeycomb, Google at its I/O developer conference in May 2011 announced Ice Cream Sandwich, which became Android 4.0 when it was released months later in December. It brought many of the design elements we came to know in Android 3.x.

The first device to launch with Android 4.0 was the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The Motorola Xoom and ASUS Transformer Prime received timely updates, and the Nexus S was the first smartphone to make the leap.

Ice Cream Sandwich — or ICS as it came to be known — was relatively short-lived, however, replaced by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean some six months after its release. A number of devices ended up skipping ICS altogether and going straight to Jelly Bean.